


Nine Blocks

by PixelByPixel



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Catholic Guilt, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Gen, Guilt, Hopeful Ending, Just a lot of guilt okay?, Maggie and Matt working on their relationship, Maternal Guilt, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Past Maggie Murdock/Jack Murdock, Regret, Young Matt Murdock, oatmeal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-19 08:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel/pseuds/PixelByPixel
Summary: Maggie could walk the route to Jack's place in her sleep, but she never would. She couldn't.She just hadn't thought it would be so difficult to live in the same neighborhood as Jack and Matthew.





	1. Then

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enkiduu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkiduu/gifts).

> This gift is for [enkiduu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkiduu) as part of the [2019 Daredevil/Defenders Exchange](https://daredevilexchange.tumblr.com/). This also fills my [Daredevil Bingo](https://pixelbypixelfanfic.tumblr.com/bingo) square for _a cross to bear_.
> 
> My prompt was _“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.” - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray_
> 
> Many thanks to [titC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC) for beta-ing and general awesomeness. <3

They were always in Maggie’s mind, Jack and Matthew were. As she ate breakfast with the other nuns, she imagined them sitting down to their meal nine blocks away. Jack would never make anything fancy, of course. She imagined Matthew hoping for some sugary cereal and Jack offering something more nutritious.

Or maybe it was the other way around. Jack always said that Matthew was old for his age, too grown-up. “Sometimes I wonder which one of us is the parent,” he admitted, in more than one of their conversations.

She always said, “You’re doing your best.”

What else could she say? What else did she have the right to say?

When she thought about it, she decided that Matthew likely ate what was put before him without too much complaint, and that it was probably oatmeal.

“It’s healthy,” Jack had said when he’d tried to coax her into eating it, back when their relationship was new. He’d told her stories of his mother, how she’d served him oatmeal every morning he’d lived in her house. “And I’d eat it, or else.”

She’d never touched him, Jack had hastened to say. That had been his father’s job, doling out punishment at the end of the day, and with the Murdock boys it was a frequent occurrence. “But she has a way about her. You just don’t want to say no.”

Maggie had seen that for herself when she’d gone with Jack to meet his mother. His father was long gone by then; he’d died young of alcohol and of violence.

Well, he was a Murdock.

They didn’t tell Jack’s mother that Maggie had left her calling, though of course that all came out when she went back to St. Agnes. Maggie didn’t like to remember that time, so she thought about Jack and Matthew and oatmeal.

Maggie ate oatmeal, too, in the mornings. She turned it into a meditation of sorts, imagining her boys - _no_, not hers - sitting at a table, joking, talking about their day. _Nine blocks,_ she thought, tracing the route in her mind. Sometimes she could shut out the chatter of the other nuns and picture herself there with them.

It had gotten worse since Matthew’s accident. After that happened, Maggie prayed for both of them every day, formally, in the church, but also silently, constantly, in the back of her mind. _Keep them safe,_ she thought, as she folded laundry. _Let them be well,_ she thought, as she put away dishes in the kitchen.

Would it have helped, she always wondered, if she had prayed for them on the day of Matthew’s accident? In hindsight, she couldn’t remember if she had, or if she had just gone about her day. She had to believe it would have helped, otherwise what was the point of, well, anything?

Jack had been calling more since she’d spoken to him in the hospital; that was something. She was never there to catch the calls, to speak with him, but she had the messages. She would never admit that she had saved them all, that she had listened to each one so often that she could say the words along with Jack.

Maggie didn’t return the calls, of course. How could she? What if Matthew answered? But it seemed to be enough for Jack to know that he was heard.

Maggie never said how much she treasured the messages, but he knew. He had to know, didn’t he?

After all, he kept calling.

“He’s so smart,” Jack said in nearly every message. “He gets that from you.”

He never said that he couldn’t keep up with Matthew, though sometimes she could hear the worry of it in his voice. She tried to find the words to reassure him on those rare occasions that they spoke: chance encounters in the street or moments stolen after church.

She never quite managed it, but she tried.

The phone was probably a sin, secret as it was. She knew that; it was probably why her outgoing message was so brusque. But she still couldn’t bring herself to confess it, because then she’d have to give it up, give up her link to _them_, and she wouldn’t do that.

Not when the messages gave her a window into their lives.

She couldn’t.

It had been Jack’s idea. After Matthew’s First Communion, she’d lingered in one of the side rooms, not specifically in the hopes of seeing Jack, but then he’d happened to come by.

Well, no, not _happened_, not with that purposeful stride, that boyish smile. He’d come looking for her.

“He did so good,” he exulted, and it looked like it was all he could do not to hug her.

They’d seen each other, of course, day-to-day. The Kitchen was small enough, or their part of it was, that they couldn’t help it. They hadn’t spoken much, though. Matthew was almost always present, tagging along by Jack’s side in a way that warmed Maggie’s heart. At least they had each other.

And if she had stayed, maybe they wouldn’t be so close.

Maybe.

“He did,” Maggie agreed, with a small smile. “Where is he?”

“With my mother.”

Of course, Maggie had known that his mother would come. She was devout; it was because of her that Matthew was as involved in the church as he was.

“How is she doing?” Maggie asked. “I saw her during the service and she…” She looked awful, though Maggie didn’t want to come out and say it.

Jack looked away and rubbed the back of his neck the way he always did when he didn’t want to talk about something. “The cancer’s back,” he admitted, his voice low.

“Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry. Do they know how long -” _No_, she reprimanded herself. _This is not your family. You have no right._ Instead, she said, “I’ll pray for her.”

“I’ll let her know. She’ll appreciate that. She always says that God is more likely to hear prayers when they come from you.” Jack managed a smile, then added, his voice cracking, “I don’t know how to tell Matty.”

Her heart broke a little more for him, and also a tiny bit for herself. Jack’s mother had been so kind to her, so joyful about her grandchild-to-be. And then, after everything, she had come to Maggie and wished her well. She’d said, “I’ll look after my boy, and your boy, too. He’ll always be your boy, even though you’re not with him.”

Maggie had managed to hold back her tears until the door had closed behind Jack’s mother, and she had been grateful, so grateful, even as those words twisted in her heart.

She cleared her throat, though it was still tight as she said, “He may have guessed. You’ve said how perceptive he is.”

“Maybe,” Jack agreed. He exhaled a long sigh. “It’s going to be rough. Ma’s always…” He coughed, and Maggie could see him trying not to lose his composure. “Look, do you have a phone?”

“A… phone?” She saw his gaze drift to the empty phone jack on the wall behind her. “There’s one in the hall, and some jacks nobody uses, like that one.”

“Could you get one? Maybe… It’s just been hard lately. I could use somebody to talk to.”

He knew better than to suggest that she come to the house.

She should say no. The sort of contact they were having, at a church function, that was acceptable. Barely. But a phone? It was too private. She shouldn’t. She even inhaled to say so, but then she saw that wounded look on his face, as if he was already imagining her refusal.

“I’ll try. But it’s not like I’d be able to answer, you know. It’s not going to be in my room.”

“But I’d talk to you, and you’d hear it _eventually_.”

She couldn’t help but smile in response to his earnest manner. “We’ll see. Maybe we can -”

“Dad?”

Matthew stood in the doorway, his small face creased with worry.

They hadn’t closed the door, perhaps afraid of what would happen if they’d had just that much more privacy.

“Hey, Matty.” Jack darted a glance to Maggie, his brows lifting, but she shook her head. Not now. “What’s wrong?” he added, as Matthew stepped into the room.

“Can we go?” Matthew shot a quick look at Maggie, then turned back to his father. “Gran says she’s okay, but she looks tired. I think we should take her home.”

“Well, if you say so, we probably should.” Jack pulled Matthew into a hug and ruffled his hair, grinning at the boy’s laughing protest. Maggie thought her heart would overflow, pride warring with pain and so many what-ifs. She was almost startled when Jack continued, “You did so good today. Even the sister thought so.” Jack looked over Matthew’s head at Maggie, his brows lifting in encouragement.

“I did,” Maggie agreed, hating how tentative her voice was, how stiff. “You did very well, Matthew.”

“Thanks, Sister,” Matthew said, though his tone was casual, as if it didn’t matter.

And why should it matter to him? This was just the first time she’d said more than _hello_ to him in more years than she wanted to remember, that was all.

“You should go,” Maggie said, knowing her voice had gone sharp. “See to your Gran.”

“Goodbye… Sister,” Jack said as Matthew pulled him out of the room. He had been close, so close to calling her something else.

Mercifully, or not, Matthew hadn’t appeared to notice. “Can we get pizza?” he asked, his voice fading as he drew farther away. “Gran would like it, I know she would. And you said I did a good job. Even the sister did, and she should know!”

The sister.

Maggie leaned against the door frame, her eyes closing as she listened to Jack’s teasing response, Matthew’s bargaining.

She opened her eyes and watched them walk down the hallway together.

She could have been with them, three instead of two.

No, she couldn’t have.

If she had stayed, Matthew wouldn’t have been safe. She had made the right decision.

She had.

She closed her eyes once more and said a prayer for Jack’s mother. That done, she tried to remember where the spare phones might be kept, and whether she could get a separate line activated to one of the phone jacks. She knew someone who could help, someone she had done favors for in times past.

She shouldn’t do it, but she knew she would anyway.

* * *

“Hi, Mags.”

Maggie sat in the cramped, barely-used room on the top floor of St. Agnes, her heart beating a little faster. Most of the time, the phone stayed hidden in the top drawer of the room’s battered desk, taken out only when she listened to Jack’s messages. So far, nobody had noticed. She suspected that Paul Lantom might suspect something, from the knowing look he gave her on occasion, but if he wasn't going to mention it, neither would she. 

She’d caught him outside a bodega to tell him the number and he’d been delighted that she’d managed it, though his pleasure had been tempered with worry. “You won’t get in trouble?”

“You think they’ll catch me?” she had asked, a challenge in her voice, and in his answering grin she had seen the man she had fallen in love with.

His voice on the message was hoarse, roughened with fatigue and something else. “I know you can’t… I just… Ma died early this morning.” His voice cracked, and then there came a very quiet sound, one of such pain that it was all Maggie could do not to go to him.

Jack didn’t speak for a little while, only the sound of his ragged breathing indicating that he was still on the line. “I thought you should know. Matty’s -” His voice broke again. “He’ll be okay, but it’s rough. He loved her so much.” He inhaled deeply, as if trying to regain some composure, then said, “I have to get back. I just… wanted you to hear it from me.”

Maggie couldn’t check her messages too often. If she stayed too long in that room, people would notice. She’d turned the ringer off, so nobody would hear the phone, and she chose times to check when her absence wouldn’t be noted.

She spent too much time thinking about the phone and its messages, she knew. She found that she didn’t much care.

Most of the messages were brief: chatty facts about some small thing Matthew had done, or news that Jack wanted her to know. Usually they weren’t so awful, though even the day-to-day messages tugged at her heart

And every time the answering machine’s tape filled, she took it out and put it in the shoebox she hid at the back of her small closet, tucked under a spare blanket. Nobody would find them there.

Maggie went to the funeral, of course. Jack’s mother had been a pillar of the church; it was only right.

She didn’t approach Jack during the service, but saw him and Matthew at the front of the church, huddled together in their grief, and her heart broke a little more.

They were, she realized, the last of the Murdock family still in the Kitchen. Jack’s brothers had, like their father, lived hard and died young. Any extended family had either passed on or left the area, searching for something better than Hell’s Kitchen.

They looked so alone.

Of course, the church rallied around them, and Maggie had some extremely uncharitable thoughts about the young women of the congregation, now likely to _just happen to stop by_ with a meal for the bereaved.

Maggie silently resolved to organize a meal rotation among the older, _married_ women, even as she knew that she was being unfair.

She had no right.

Jack _should_ find someone else.

No, not someone _else_. Someone. There wasn’t any _else_ about it. She didn’t count as a someone. Not any more.

Matthew needed a mother.

Maggie inhaled sharply at the thought and slipped out a side door, the idea more than she could bear. He was hers, her boy.

Right. It was all about Matthew.

Maggie knew she couldn’t lie to herself. Not about that, at least. She loved Matthew with all her heart, and Jack?

She loved him, too. She knew she always would. It wasn’t with the same intensity as when they were both young; everything was so much _more_ at that age. Instead of a raging fire, it was a spark, an ember, carefully tended.

That night before bed she prayed long and hard, asking God to bless Jack and Matthew. When she got to her feet, her knees aching from her time in prayer, she looked out her window. She couldn’t see their apartment, of course; not even the way to the apartment. Paul had made sure of that when she had returned, saying it would be easier.

Back then, she’d agreed; she’d agreed to everything Paul had said. Now, she both regretted and was grateful for the nine blocks that separated her from Jack and Matthew.

* * *

For a while, Maggie feared that his grandmother’s death would mean that Matthew would no longer come to church. After all, Jack wasn’t exactly known for his devotion. But after an understandable time to grieve, Matthew returned to Mass and sat by himself in the pew that he had shared with his grandmother.

He looked so small, but he kept up with the responses and bore the older parishioners’ clucking with more grace at eight than Maggie could have managed as an adult.

Maggie knew she shouldn’t, but she eased up to him after the service had ended, conscious of Paul Lantom’s watchful eye.

“Where’s your father?”

“He had a match.”

“On a Sunday morning?”

That sparked a small smile from Matthew, and Maggie felt her throat tighten just a little. She had done that, gotten a positive reaction. And this was an actual conversation!

“No, last night. He, uh.” Matthew sighed. “He didn’t do so great. He’s sleeping.”

Maggie nodded, suddenly unsure of what to say. _Sorry about your grandmother_ was a given and something Matthew had no doubt heard too many times; _How is school?_ was the annoying sort of question asked by adults who didn’t know a child well enough to come up with something more specific.

Well. That was accurate. For all of his father’s messages, she didn’t really know her boy.

“What do you like to do after school?” Maggie asked, and bit back a sigh at the abruptness of her tone, the awkwardness of the question.

Matthew shrugged, glancing past Maggie to the exit. “Whatever the other kids want to do. Play. Run around. Whatever.”

Maggie shook her head, trying not to be irritated with herself. Could she not manage one simple conversation with an eight-year-old? Crisply, she said, “As an individual, you must pick your own goals. Listen to others, but do not become a blind follower.”

That caught Matthew’s attention. “That sounds like somebody else said it first,” he said, a curious glint in his eyes.

“What, I’m not smart enough to come up with that?” Matthew ducked his head, and Maggie again regretted her tone. “You’re right, though. Somebody else did say it before me, or something very like it.”

“Who?”

“Thurgood Marshall.”

“Who’s that?”

Maggie smiled. “Look him up. I know you know where the library is.”

Jack had told her of the stacks of books that Matthew brought home from the library, lately on Ancient Egypt.

“How do you know I know?” Matthew asked, his eyes narrowing.

“It’s what, four blocks away? I’d hope you know. And it beats doing _whatever_. Go on, now, and tell your father to do better next week, so he can come with you to church.”

Matthew grinned and Maggie’s heart swelled.

“Okay. G’bye, Sister.”

“M-Maggie,” she said, though not until after he’d gone.

She was not surprised when Paul appeared at her elbow, though mercifully he waited until the nearby people had left before he spoke. “Are you going to tell him?”

“No.”

“But with his grandmother gone, he needs -”

“Something I can’t provide.”

Paul shook his head. “Maggie, you can’t be… what you were to him, but don’t you think -”

Maggie grabbed Paul’s arm and pulled him down a hallway, trying not to be more irritated by his small smile. Once they had achieved relative privacy, she asked, “What do you think I should do, Paul? Tell him I’m… who I am to him? How would that work, exactly? Would he come back to St. Agnes after school and bake cookies with me?”

“I don’t see you being the type to bake cookies.”

“No.”

“But don’t you think it would help him to know? What has Jack told him about you?”

“He hasn’t,” Maggie replied, her voice flat. “What would he tell Matthew? That I’ve been living here all along, nine blocks away, and I left him and his father alone?”

“Well. No. But you could tell him you’re here now.”

“It wouldn’t do any good, Paul. He and Jack are fine by themselves. They’ve made a life together. I’d just get in the way.”

“Don’t you think Jack should be involved in that decision?”

Paul had, perhaps, seen the encouraging looks Jack had given her.

Maggie kept her tone even as she agreed, "Yes. Jack should be involved, and I should be involved. We are his -” She fumbled for the word, discarding _parents_, then settled on, “_Jack and I_ are his.” She gave Paul a meaningful look, then, assuming that he would come to the obvious conclusion.

He drew himself up, though his voice was mild as he said, “I’m your priest, Maggie. And your friend. I hope you’ll know you can always come to me if you need anything.”

“Then, as my priest and as my friend, let my decision stand.”

He did, at least for that day. But over the next weeks and months, he would catch Maggie’s eye and say, “Now?”

The answer was always no.

* * *

Even after Matthew’s accident more than a year later, the answer was still no. When Maggie returned from her vigil at the hospital, exhausted and angrier with God than she had ever been in her life, Paul awaited her. At least he didn’t ask her if she had changed her mind about telling Matthew; no, his first question was, “How is he?”

“Blind. In pain. He -” Maggie’s voice broke, as it had not in her strained conversation with Jack, her interrogation of the rather confused medical staff. Then she had been brisk, strong, doing what needed to be done.

She always did what needed to be done.

“He needs you.”

Maggie inhaled a sharp breath. This was worse than the pressure to tell Matthew who she was, because no small part of her felt that it was true.

“And what do you expect me to do?” Maggie demanded, glad for her anger to have a target. “Leave the Church? Give up all that I have done, all that I’ve become?”

In her heart, she wanted him to say, _Yes, do it, be with your boy_.

Paul hesitated. “You do good work here, Maggie,” he temporized. “We’re glad to have you. But if…”

_Finish,_ Maggie thought fiercely, her head bowed. _Give me the excuse…_

Why did she need an excuse? Why couldn’t she just do it? Though what _it_ was, she didn’t entirely know. Would she really leave the Church? Move in with Jack and Matthew? The thought both tempted and terrified her.

Would Matthew be safe if she did that? Intellectually she knew that she wouldn’t, couldn’t hurt her boy. Part of her still worried that she would, and all of her knew that she didn’t deserve the chance. Not after what she had done. Not after all this time.

It didn’t matter, though. Paul didn’t finish.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low. “I will pray for Matthew and for you.”

Maggie exhaled, half a sob. “Thank you, Paul.”

What else could she say?

Her decision had already been made nine years earlier, nine blocks away.

* * *

Paul was the one who found Maggie that day. She had been doing the laundry from the orphanage, which was always an adventure. Really, how did those children manage to find such things, let alone stuff them in their pockets and forget them? She had unearthed acorn caps, soda can tabs, small rocks, creased bits of paper (which she left unopened; the children deserved their secrets), and countless other small, unidentifiable treasures.

She knew that something horrible had happened before Paul spoke. His expression strained and tense, he sat down next to her and placed his hand upon hers. She felt his small tremor, saw him inhale a deep breath.

Why was she so aware of such small details?

“Maggie,” he began. When he couldn’t continue, dread rose in her chest, choking her breath from her lungs.

“Just say it, whatever it is.”

It couldn’t possibly be worse than Matthew’s blinding.

“Jack was killed last night.”

It could.

Maggie saw Paul’s lips moving and understood somehow that he was explaining what had happened, but her brain whited out his words. Thoughts of Jack flooded her mind: the day they’d met, his joy when he had learned they would have Matthew - _Matthew_. How would he possibly bear this?

Paul’s words weren’t true, whatever they were. They couldn’t be. God wouldn’t - she refused to acknowledge it.

“Why would you tell me this?”

Paul finally grasped Maggie’s hand, his fingers gentle on hers. “It happened. Maggie, you have to be strong.”

“Why? Why do I have to be strong?” It started as a whisper but built to a shriek. She ignored Paul’s vaguely panicked shushing. “I’ve always been strong, except the one time it mattered.”

Paul’s grip on Maggie’s hand turned painfully tight. She made no move to pull away. It was no more than she deserved, after all.

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened back then,” he said, his voice quiet but fierce.

He should have known better than to tell Maggie what she could or couldn’t do, especially where guilt was concerned. And, after all, who else could she blame?

But he was right about one thing: Maggie had to be strong. She extracted her hand from Paul’s grip and tucked it in her lap, feeling like it wasn’t a part of her but just something to be dealt with.

“What happened?” she asked, looking at the pile of folded sheets, the children’s lost treasures, anywhere but at Paul Lantom.

“He’d been throwing matches for money.”

Maggie remembered Matthew explaining, _He didn’t do so great_ and thought, _Jack, no._

“- won his most recent one, against Creel. But he was shot in an alley after the match. Maybe he was supposed to lose.” Paul heaved a sigh. “Word on the street pins it on Roscoe Sweeney, so that’s probably a pretty safe -” He grimaced, clearly changing his words as he concluded, “assumption.”

“He will pay for his crimes,” Maggie whispered, though her words felt rote, automatic, detached. Tears streaked her cheeks, but couldn’t remember how they’d gotten there. She scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, the rough fabric bringing a different kind of pain. She welcomed it.

Paul hesitated, and Maggie knew what he wasn’t saying: that Sweeney had already gotten away with worse. “God will judge him,” he agreed.

Maggie got to her feet and a tremor rocked her body. This couldn’t be happening. It _couldn’t_. Jack, he…

“I’ll…” She didn’t finish, but left Paul Lantom staring after her as she bolted from the room.

She rushed past a gaggle of children, whipped around a corner so quickly that she nearly lost her balance, up the stairs and then was _there_, slamming the door behind her, alone.

Not in _her_ room, of course. No, she was in the little room where her phone was hidden. She fumbled the drawer open, and her hands shook so badly that it took her three tries to push the button to play the message, for of course there was a message. Of course.

He’d left it the previous night, and she could hear the sounds from Fogwell’s in the background: the grunt of a fighter as he worked the heavy bag, a trainer giving instructions.

Jack, Jack from last night, Jack _alive and well_ and if that had changed Maggie was going to kill him, cleared his throat.

“Hey, it’s, uh, it’s me. I’m about to go do something. Well, I’m about to be me. You know better than anybody that doesn’t always go so well.”

Maggie’s heart sank. _No,_ she thought, or maybe said. She fumbled for a chair and sat, her mind trying to make sense of Jack’s words.

His voice continued, calm and quiet. “I don’t know how this is gonna go, but if I were a betting man… Matt’s going to need you. More than ever. Look after him, okay? And I know what I’m asking here, but he’s a good kid. He sure as hell didn’t get that from me. So it’s better this way. Just once I want Matty to hear people cheer for his old man. Just once.”

Maggie listened long after the message had ended, hoping that Jack would say something else. When no further sound came, she ejected the tape from the answering machine and slipped it into her pocket before shoving the drawer shut.

“You idiot,” she whispered, rage and grief threatening to overwhelm her. How could he? How could he let his pride rule him like that, take precedence over Matthew? He had to have known what would happen.

She closed her eyes, pushing back the shriek that threatened to tear her apart.

She had no time for that. Not now. Not when there was Matthew to consider.

Maggie wasn’t sure what she looked like when she returned to the laundry room, but Paul Lantom’s stricken expression suggested that it was nothing good.

The small, distant part of herself that was still able to think noted that he had folded the laundry.

She took a deep breath.

“Where is Matthew?” Maggie asked, as if she hadn’t been wondering the whole time. She spoke quietly; it was either that or scream. Her voice did not shake. Her hands did.

Paul fumbled in the laundry and found her a handkerchief. She stared at it, numbly wondering what she was supposed to do with it.

“The police took charge of him. Bill Mahoney, I think. They’re going to find a foster -”

_Look after him, okay?_

“No.”

Paul looked over, seeming startled by her interruption.

“You go get him, Paul. You bring him here.”

“Maggie, do you really -”

“Paul Lantom, you go get my boy.” Maggie’s voice was still quiet, but now she felt the steel in it. Paul appeared to as well, as he drew himself up.

Her hands no longer shook.

“The foster care would likely be temporary, until they find his next of kin.”

Maggie regarded Paul, her eyebrows lifting.

“Well, they won’t know to look for you,” he protested.

“They won’t find anyone else,” Maggie replied. “Jack’s ma died last year, and she was the last of them close enough to matter.” Paul seemed to hesitate, and Maggie urged, “He’s part of our congregation, Paul. He belongs here, with us.”

_He’s a good kid._

Paul nodded, after a long moment of consideration. “Will you tell him?”

How could she? The poor boy’s world had been shattered. Who was she to send the pieces further askew?

“He’ll be here, where I can look after him.” She heard the echo of Jack’s words in her voice and grasped at the back of a chair, using it to anchor her to the present, to reality.

Maggie expected Paul to caution her about favoritism, but he simply nodded and got to his feet. “I’ll arrange it. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

Maggie was, wasn’t she? What else could she do? Jack, bless him, curse him, had forced her hand.

She believed the reason he’d given, that he’d wanted Matthew to be proud of him, but she was also fairly certain that Jack had known she wouldn’t be able to leave Matthew alone. Not now.

* * *

Bedtime had come and gone by the time Paul returned with Matthew. It was simplest for Paul to get the boy tucked into bed.

There was no need for Maggie to help, certainly. Still, she lingered in the stairwell, and it was there that Paul found her.

“Said he wasn’t tired, but he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow,” Paul reported.

Maggie nodded.

Her boy, here with her, under the same roof.

“How is he?” she ventured.

“As you might expect. Hurting. Angry.”

Maggie nodded once more. Matthew had taken so many hits over the past year or so. Of course he was angry. But he was too much his father’s son to stay down.

“You could look in on him.”

Maggie was startled into meeting Paul’s gaze. “Didn’t you say that he’s sleeping?”

Paul shrugged. “You could tuck him in.”

Maggie exhaled a sound that wasn’t quite scoffing, but yet wasn’t a laugh, either. “Tuck him in,” she echoed, disbelieving.

Paul smiled. “Give it a try.”

“Paul, just because he’s here, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be his - look, I’m not going to tell him.”

“Of course you’re not.” Maggie eyed Paul, who had been encouraging her to come clean to Matthew for how many years now? He continued, “He’s sleeping. He’s had a rough day. You don’t want to wake him up.” He stretched, an awkward, overdone gesture. “I’m going to bed. If you want to make sure he’s settled, well, you know where he is.” And Paul brushed past her, leaving her alone in the stairwell.

She had an extremely uncharitable thought about him, one she would take great relish in confessing.

But he had a point. Shouldn’t she make sure Matthew was all right?

Shaking her head at the lie she was selling herself, Maggie nonetheless moved up the stairs and down the hall.

Numbers were low these days in the orphanage; Matthew had been given a room to himself, though there was another bed waiting for an occupant.

Maggie eased open the door, hardly daring to breathe. Matthew had taken the bed closest to the door, and his suitcase rested against the bed’s foot. Such a small thing to contain all of Matthew’s worldly goods.

Finally, finally, Maggie turned to look at her boy. He curled in a knot in the bed, tightly coiled even in sleep, though the streetlight shining through the window let her see enough of his face to note the puffiness around his eyes.

Poor boy; of course he had cried for his father. Jack and Matthew, alone in their household, must have formed a bond rarely shared by fathers and sons. No doubt it felt to Matthew like his whole world had been taken from him.

A prayer escaped Maggie’s lips before she consciously framed the words: peace for her boy; for Jack, who was surely in Heaven; for Maggie herself.

Matthew sighed, and then his breathing caught. “Dad?” His voice sounded vague, blurred with sleep, but he tried again. “Daddy?”

“Hush, now,” Maggie whispered, trying not to panic. “You’re safe, Matthew. Go back to sleep.”

Matthew inhaled a deep breath and was quiet just long enough that Maggie almost believed he had gone back to sleep, but then he said, “He’s dead. My dad.”

His eyes were open now, sightlessly roaming the room, though he remained curled on his side.

“Yes,” Maggie agreed softly.

“I hoped…” Matthew’s face twisted and he shook his head, a tremor shaking his small body before he stilled. “I hoped it was a bad dream.”

“I’m sorry.” What should she do? Sit on the bed? Take his hand? Maggie edged closer to the bed, at least. “We’ll look after you here, though, Matthew.”

“Thanks,” he replied, his voice worryingly toneless.

He closed his eyes, though the stiffness of his posture and the rasp of his breathing gave the lie to his pretense.

Maggie let him have his deception. “Good night, Matthew. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She neither expected nor received a response.

* * *

The other children went off to school the next day as usual, but nobody objected when Matthew remained in bed. It was generally agreed that the poor child deserved a break, some time to adapt to his new surroundings and his new situation.

In the kitchen, Maggie heard the soft sounds of his cane and found herself straightening her posture, arranging her face into benign pleasantry, before sighing at the ridiculousness of worrying how Matthew would see her.

He made it to the doorway and halted, uncertainty in his posture, and Maggie felt a rush of guilt. Someone should have been there waiting for him, to help him find his way.

No, not someone. _Maggie_ should have been there.

“Good morning, Matthew.” He made a vague noise in response, and Maggie chose not to ask him how he slept. “Are you hungry?”

He didn’t reply, but fumbled his way to the table and sat down, so Maggie took that as a yes.

He must have moved in his sleep, because he had somehow managed to get his hair all askew, the locks twisted and curled and even looking like small horns on his head. But there was time later to mention his need for a hairbrush. Instead, Maggie filled a bowl and set it in front of him, sliding it gently so that it touched his hand.

“What’s that?”

Well, communication was a good start, and Maggie wasn’t really surprised by the dull tone of Matthew’s voice.

“Try it and find out. There’s a spoon - just up a bit from your hand - and I’ll get you some milk.” Matthew made a face, and Maggie said crisply, “Don’t tell me your father lets - let you drink coffee.”

Matthew’s face twisted, and she knew that she should not have brought up his father.

“He lets me drink _Scotch_.”

Maggie took note of Matthew speaking of Jack as if he was still alive, and inhaled a long breath. The poor child. But there was the anger Paul had mentioned, and, really, Maggie didn’t blame Matthew for it. She was angry, too, and she was older and more able to deal with it all. “Well, we don’t serve Scotch here until at least after dinner. Eat your breakfast, and then we’ll see about getting you situated.”

“Why am I _here_?”

Maggie poured the milk, taking her time to come up with an answer. “You’re part of our family,” she said finally. “The church family.”

“You’re not my family,” Matthew replied, quick as a flash, and Maggie put down the milk in front of him with a small thump.

She wasn’t, not really, but that didn’t mean that Matthew’s words didn’t cut her to the quick.

“Maybe not,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “But we care about you.”

Matthew made an indelicate sound, but did finally reach for the spoon. He poked at the bowl’s contents and then lifted a spoonful to his mouth.

Good. He was too thin. Part of that was probably just the age; children were like putty, their shapes changing seemingly overnight when growth spurts hit. But he still needed to eat.

“This is like my gran’s oatmeal.”

“Is it now?”

“Yeah. She always put a little cinnamon in it, and brown sugar, and… other things. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Maggie had a sudden image of Jack’s mother making oatmeal with Matthew just as she had with Maggie, the older woman guiding his hands to add ingredients, the two of them laughing.

Somehow, she couldn’t see herself and Matthew doing the same.

“Well, I knew your gran.”

Matthew paused in his eating, his head tipped slightly to one side. “There’s knowing somebody and then there’s knowing how they make oatmeal.”

Well. Jack had said Matthew was smart.

“Eat up, now,” Maggie prompted, and she noted Matthew’s distinct pause before he took up the spoon once more, as if to make it clear that he was eating because he was hungry, not because of her instructions.

He had Jack’s stubbornness. Well, and some of that came from her, too, she had to admit.

“How did you know my gran?” Matthew persisted, when Maggie didn’t speak.

“You know how it is here,” came Paul’s welcome voice from the doorway. “Everybody knows everybody else.”

“But not _oatmeal_,” Matthew muttered. The spoon scraped against the bottom of his bowl, and he flinched away from the sound.

“Would you like some more?” Maggie asked, and she added more oatmeal to his bowl when he nodded.

“How are you settling in?” Paul asked, his voice too hearty, too loud for the space.

“I’m fine,” Matthew replied, his words made indistinct by a full mouth.

“Good, good. We wish it wasn’t under these circumstances, but we’re glad to have you.” Paul came into the room and rested a hand on Matthew’s head. Maggie saw her boy’s shoulders hunch.

Maybe it was the sight of Paul’s hand on Matthew’s head, but Maggie had a sudden flash of memory from nine years earlier.

* * *

The tremors in her legs and the deep, bone-weariness she felt through her entire body told her that she should still be in bed.

Stubbornness kept Maggie on her feet. She would not miss this. She would _not_.

But neither could she sit with everyone else. They would see. They would _know_. No, Maggie eyed the stairs up to the balcony with dislike, but climbed them nonetheless, clinging to the handrail to keep herself upright.

She wasn’t sure how long it took her to reach the balcony. Father Lantom was still speaking, but there, there was Jack, seated in a pew in his best - only - suit, looking a little lost as he held Matthew.

Maggie drank in the sight of them. Her legs finally said _enough_, and she sank into a seat, whispering, “Inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo.”1

They had done Ovid’s _Orpheus and Eurydice_ in Latin class her senior year of high school. Maggie had joked about the story at the time - _Seriously, you expect a guy to follow instructions?_ \- but here and now the sentiment felt accurate: the sight of her baby and his father touched her heart.

Jack’s mother was there, of course, and his youngest brother, and even a few boxers who trained with him.

He had family. He had people. He has support. He wasn’t going to have to do this alone.

So why did Maggie still feel like a horrible person?

Father Lantom had said that coming back to the Church was the right thing to do, but Father Lantom had also not wanted her to leave the Church in the first place, which made Maggie suspect that his opinion was a little biased.

He was right, though. Staying with Jack and Matthew, much as she loved them both, would have lead to something awful happening. Well, more awful.

Maggie hugged herself as she watched the service. Jack peered around the church as he brought Matthew to the baptismal font, as if looking for her, and Maggie drew back.

Of course, Jack had to know that she wouldn’t miss it, and she longed to go to him.

She couldn’t, though, even if she could manage the stairs again so soon. She, they needed this distance. It was necessary to keep Matthew safe.

Father Lantom glanced up to the balcony and caught her eye. He rested a hand on Matthew’s head as if to say, _See? He’s fine._

But as she watched Jack give Matthew the name they had chosen, listened to the family and the community pledge to guide him in the Church, Maggie wished it could have been different. She just wasn’t sure how.

* * *

Matthew finally shifted his body enough that Paul lifted his hand from Matthew’s head.

Maggie studied Matthew, who was doggedly eating his breakfast, and wondered _how_.

How had so much time passed that Matthew was an actual person now, clearly full of his own opinions? How were they here, now, together?

Was this what God had intended? How could it be? How could God want to bring so much grief to a child, not even ten years old?

Even though it had brought Matthew here, into her life, Maggie still couldn’t approve.

Paul was saying something about school and getting terse answers from Matthew.

“Not today,” Maggie said, using that tone of voice that Paul had learned meant _take heed_. “No school.”

Two heads turned in her direction. Paul looked a little rueful, like this was what he had expected, while Matthew’s face showed the dawning of hope.

“He can help me around here,” Maggie added brusquely, and some of Matthew’s hope seemed to fade a little.

Maggie did, however, feel extreme temptation to smack that knowing look off Paul’s face.

“I’ll, ah, leave you to it, then,” Paul said, his voice light. “Matthew, you know my door is always open if you need to talk or anything.”

Matthew made a vaguely affirmative noise, and Paul stepped out of the kitchen.

For the rest of the day, Matthew stayed by Maggie’s side and it was wonderful. She kept him busy, and seemed to know when his grief was approaching _too much_ and he needed a distraction. Scrubbing floors helped with grief, Maggie knew; the physical labor helped focus the mind. Laundry was not demanding enough, and washing dishes too often lead to broken plates.

They did make a satisfying crash when they hit the wall, but then there was the cleanup.

She didn’t have Matthew scrub the floors, of course, but there were plenty of other small tasks to keep his mind occupied.

So many times during the day, Maggie inhaled a breath to tell Matthew who she was. Each time, she stopped herself. Matthew was already in a precarious state, and her telling him would only confuse the child, or make him wonder why she hadn’t told him sooner.

The time to tell him, Maggie realized now, had been when he was too little to understand. It should have been a tale he had grown up knowing: his mother, who hadn’t been able to stay but who still cared for him.

His mother, who had chosen God over him.

She could have had nine years of this, Matthew at her side, if only she had been stronger. Just one day had been enough to unearth so much remorse.

Maggie felt her throat tighten as she watched Matthew. Her vocation was there - she would not have survived these past nine years otherwise - but there had been too many days of wondering _what if_, too many nights of regret.

No. This was not the time to tell him. Maybe, she was coming to realize, the time would never be right. For now, it was enough that Matthew was there, that she could watch over him.

That night, she stayed in the doorway as Matthew got himself settled in bed, afraid to draw closer. He tipped his head in her direction and asked, “Do you need more help tomorrow?” Maybe he sensed her hesitation, as he added, “There’s so much to do.”

_Yes,_ she thought. And, _Always._

“No. It’s school for you tomorrow, Matthew.”

His face fell, but he didn’t whine or wheedle. Instead, he sighed and leaned back against the pillow.

“Was there something else?”

“Sister, do you think that my dad is in Heaven?” Maggie’s mind reeled that he would even ask that, but Matthew added, “He… sometimes he did things he shouldn’t do. Like with his matches.”

Maggie exhaled a breath, and Matthew’s head turned slightly in her direction. She could feel her heart pounding, and his focus. “Whatever your father did, I’m sure it was to help you,” she said, emotion tightening her throat and making her words come out more sharply than she intended. “I’m sure he’s in Heaven.”

“So it’s okay to do bad things if you have a good reason,” Matthew said, clearly turning the idea over in his mind. He smiled, then, adding, “What is the quality of your intent?”

_Thurgood Marshall,_ Maggie thought. Jack hadn’t mentioned Matthew ever coming home with books about Thurgood Marshall, and she had never thought to ask, had never imagined that he would take her suggestion to heart.

“When we intend to do good, we do,” Matthew added, and Maggie nodded, deciding that Thurgood Marshall’s opinion was the one Matthew needed to hear just then.

“Don’t worry about your father, Matthew,” Maggie said, trying to gentle her voice. “He’ll be waiting for you in Heaven, when it’s your time.”

Which, she informed God, had better not be for a long, _long_ time.

Matthew nodded and burrowed deeper into his blankets.

“Sleep well,” Maggie added, allowing herself one more look at Matthew before she slipped out of the room.

She was not surprised to find Paul waiting for her in the kitchen.

“I told him he has to go to school tomorrow,” she said before he could ask, rolling up her sleeves as she strode to the sink.

No eye contact. She already didn’t like the talk they were going to have, and he hadn’t even said anything.

“Nice day?”

Maggie ignored him, taking her time in filling the sink and rinsing the pots that one of the other nuns had left to soak.

“Maggie,” Paul prompted.

“Yes, and you know it.”

Maggie kept her back to him, ramrod-straight, and took care to maintain an even tone to her voice.

She’d been told that she was short - presumably, they meant her manner - and she never felt the need to explain that sometimes she acted as she did to keep from letting out her emotions. Her face and her tone, those she could control, at least some of the time.

“He’s a good kid.”

Maggie paused in her pot scrubbing to close her eyes at the echo of Jack’s words. “He is,” she agreed flatly.

“Don’t you think this situation would be easier for him if you explained -”

“No.”

“But Maggie -”

“_No._”

“But he’s lost his father and -”

Maggie could have said that the plate slipped. That, however, would not have explained how it ended up across the room; and lying was a sin. She simply let the silence - so charged a silence, after the crash of the plate - speak for her.

“Is everything -” Sister Constance bustled into the kitchen, though she came to a halt when she saw Maggie and Paul and the plate. She crossed to the sink to put a bracing arm around Maggie; Connie knew the situation and, bless her, had let Maggie talk about it without telling her what she should do. “You just go on to bed. I’ll finish up here and take care of that plate.”

“Connie,” Maggie protested, though weakly. With Connie she would allow herself that weakness.

“No, you go on,” Connie repeated. “You and young Matthew got so much done today that I’m ahead of myself.” She gave Maggie a squeeze and then gently propelled her toward the door.

“Thank you,” Maggie whispered. As she made her way through the hallway, she could not make out Connie’s words to Paul, but her firm tone was evident.

Maggie readied herself for bed, only able to manage because she had done those same things, in that same place, hundreds of times.

Kneeling by her bed, she said her usual prayers for the leaders of the church, for the members of the parish who were ill or otherwise in need, and for the people of Hell’s Kitchen. She took a breath. “Jack,” she said, as if he were standing behind her. “I know I told our son the truth today. I know you’re in Heaven. Watch over him, please. I’ll do what I can, but…” Maggie felt her throat tighten, and she couldn’t continue.

She knew she couldn’t let herself get close to Matthew. It was too painful. The day’s events had shown her that. She let her head drop to the bed and finally allowed her tears to flow. She cried for Jack, his life cut too short. She cried for Matthew, bereft of his father. And, just a little, she cried for herself.

* * *

1When Orpheus descends and confronts Hades and Persephone, he sings a song so that they will grant his wish to bring Eurydice back from the dead. After this song is sung, Ovid shows how moving it was by noting that Sisyphus, emotionally affected, for just a moment, stops his eternal task and sits on his rock, the Latin wording being inque tuo sedisti, Sisyphe, saxo ("and you sat, Sisyphus, on your rock"). - [Wikipedia entry on Sisyphus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus), talking about Ovid's [Orpheus and Eurydice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_and_Eurydice) (Return to where you left off)


	2. Now

Matthew Murdock moved restlessly through his apartment. It was clean, or as clean as he could make it, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take one last spin through it in hopes of stumbling over hidden messes.

His mother was coming. Not for long; she had specified that on the phone. She had something for him, and she would drop it off and then leave. She’d called him at the office that morning, and Foggy and Karen had spent far too much time talking about what she could possibly be bringing.

Then she had called again not ten minutes later. “You might want to have someone with you. One of your partners. There’s some reading involved.” Implicit in her words had been the suggestion that Matt not be alone, which he couldn't help but find ominous.

After a moment to mull over just what this mysterious item was, Matt had suggested what seemed to him to be the obvious solution. “You could stay, do the reading.”

The silence from the phone had been brief but intense. “No, I really can’t. I’d be happy to visit maybe next week if you like, to talk, but you won’t want me there tonight.”

That, of course, had fueled Foggy and Karen’s speculation, and Foggy had agreed to show up. Being Foggy, he’d suggested that they make an evening of it, with Thai food and beer, and Matt had agreed.

Karen, with a few choice words for Maggie’s timing and after an attempt to get out of her prior commitment, had made Matt promise to give her all the details.

Matt had agreed, knowing that his definition of _all the details_ might not fit Karen’s.

Foggy arrived early that evening, but he and Matt still couldn’t agree on which Thai place would be providing their dinner. Foggy argued for the nicer one around the corner: “Look, business is good. We can afford it.”

Matt didn’t budge, though; just because business was good didn't mean that it would stay good. In the end, they went with the tiny, hole-in-the-wall Thai place around the other corner, though Foggy insisted in getting slightly better beer in return. “Call it a compromise.”

They were still waiting for the food to arrive when a knock sounded at Matt’s door. He got up to answer, and of course, it was Maggie.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, before she’d even managed a greeting. Her heart was beating quickly enough to concern him.

“Yes. Is someone here with you?” Her voice was sharp and she sounded tense.

“I’m here, Mag-, Sis-, uh, ma’am.”

That seemed to relax her just a little. “Foggy, good. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Maggie?”

“At least one more. Sure you can’t stay? We’ve got inferior Thai food coming, but at least the beer will be good.”

Wait, there went her heart again. “No, I don’t - ah, I can’t stay. Matthew, here, take this.” He lifted his hands and then closed them around the cardboard box she gave him. It had a bit of weight to it, and rattled intriguingly when he shifted it to get a better grip. “These are copies. I, uh, have the originals.” She took a breath, and Matt could hear the quiver in it. “I should have given you these, well. A long time ago. I’m sorry. Call me tomorrow if you want to talk.”

She left before Matt managed an answer, her shoes pounding an erratic rhythm as she hurried down the stairs.

“What is it?” Foggy asked. “She looked awful, Matt. All pale and kind of shaky. I’ve never seen her like that.”

Matt nudged the door closed with his foot and balanced the box in one hand as he twisted the door’s lock. “Not sure. Think I should go after her?”

“Nah, call her tomorrow, like she said. She looked like she needed to be by herself.”

Matt nodded and brought the box to the couch, setting it between himself and Foggy. He reached into it and ran his fingers along a row of small, plastic rectangles.

“Cassette tapes, huh,” Foggy said. “Looks like a bunch of them, and a player. Good thing she included that, unless you’ve got an old Walkman stuffed in your closet.”

“I’ve gone digital,” Matt replied, teasing out one of the tapes.

“There’s writing on it,” Foggy said. “Here, let me see. It’s dates. Twenty-some years ago, back when we were kids.” Matt could hear his delight as he asked, “Did your mom make you a _mix tape?_ Or maybe a lot of mix tapes?”

Matt couldn’t help but smile at the thought. What would Maggie even put on a mix tape? Church music? 70s pop? “Let’s find out. Which one is the earliest? Can you put it in the player?”

“Yeah, let me plug it in.” There was some rustling, choice commentary about dust bunnies, and then a few clicks.

“Mags, hey. I’m so glad you made it work. I knew you could. And I know you can’t call me back, but this is enough. It’ll have to be.”

His father. Matt couldn’t breathe; the sound hit him harder than any opponent ever had. Fumbling for the tape player, he realized he wasn’t sure which was the off button. What if he accidentally recorded over the tape? Needing it to stop, but not willing to risk losing even a second of his father’s voice, he yanked at the cord, pulling it from the wall, and the sound abruptly came to a halt.

Foggy asked, his voice hushed, “Was that -?”

“My dad, yeah.”

Neither of them said anything.

Matt took a breath and then another. Was he crying? He wasn’t sure. His breathing had an odd hitch to it, but he couldn’t really focus well enough to tell.

His _father_. Matt had forgotten the way his voice had sounded, the way it got a little raspy when he was tired.

How could he have forgotten that?

Foggy’s hand was on his arm, Matt realized, in bracing comfort. “I’m okay,” he said.

“Sure, you’re fine,” Foggy agreed, acknowledging the seriousness of the situation by using only a little sarcasm. “But seriously, Matt, this is huge. I mean, there’s a bunch of these tapes, and if they’re all full…”

Hours. Hours and hours of his father’s voice. Matt was about to ask Foggy to plug in the cassette player once more when a knock sounded at the door.

“Did she come back?” Foggy asked.

“Probably the food.”

It was, and Foggy dealt with everything while Matt sat on the couch, longing to start up the tapes once more, scared of what he might hear.

“Food first,” Foggy suggested, when Matt reached for a beer.

“I’m not -”

“Hungry, I know. Eat anyway.” Foggy hesitated, then asked, “Do you want to listen by yourself? They’re already arranged chronologically. The, uh, play button has a triangle on it, and the record one has a circle. They’re kind of indented, so you can feel them.”

“No.” Matt didn’t even have to think about his answer; he couldn’t handle hearing whatever might come out of the tapes alone, and Foggy was the only person he could even imagine to share the experience. “Stay. Please.”

So Foggy did, and after he bullied some Pad Thai into Matt he plugged in the tape player and pushed play. He laughed with Matt over the goofy stories Jack Murdock told of Matt’s childhood and listened seriously when the messages talked about Jack’s struggles with money and his worries that he wasn’t a good enough father to Matt. In only one message did Jack Murdock try to convince Maggie to tell Matt who she was, but the manner of it suggested that it was a common topic of discussion, and Matt felt a little better that his father had made the attempt.

And in the wee hours of the morning, after they had listened to the final message, Foggy Nelson was there for his best friend.

“He knew,” Matt said, his voice dangerously quiet. “He knew what would happen.”

“… yeah. That’s not news, though, is it, Matty?” Foggy spoke carefully, as if he wasn’t sure whether his words would tip Matt over the edge.

“It’s not, but… _how?_ How could he do it? How could he think that a victory was more important than his life?” Matt felt his voice crack and leaned against the couch, his head tipping back. He should have had at least one less beer, he decided. He’d needed them to get through the messages, but now he just wanted to scream at the heavens, or curse his father, or just… go away.

The thing was, it wasn't like his father's reasoning had been completely without merit. Matt remembered that night, hearing the crowd cheer his father's name, the way his heart had swelled with pride. But he couldn't think about that night.

It hurt too much.

Still.

Foggy was talking to him, he realized; distantly, he could hear the panic in his friend’s voice.

“… call Maggie?”

Matt focused. “No. Don’t call her.”

“Okay, buddy. Whatever you want.”

Matt pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. His voice felt dull as he said, “I want my father back, you son of a bitch.”

Foggy made a sound that was almost a laugh. “Thanks, Inigo. I’ll get right on that.”

Matt couldn’t even remember who had made him sit through _The Princess Bride_; it had probably been some girl he’d been trying to impress. He’d found himself enthralled by the revenge-obsessed swordsman. Mercifully, Foggy apparently remembered that.

“I heard him, you know. My dad. Back when Poindexter was pretending to be Daredevil.”

Foggy didn’t answer, his silence weighed down by incipient panic, Matt guessed. He should try harder not to scare Foggy. Who else would put up with him?

“Matty,” Foggy said, his tone careful; he suddenly sounded much less drunk. “Your dad was… not alive then.”

“He said we had the devil in us. That was why she left.”

Matt had thought he had accepted Maggie’s absence from his early life. Apparently, he was still struggling with it.

Next to him on the couch, Foggy spoke slowly and with obvious thought for his words. “You mean your… Maggie? Karen said she had post-partum depression. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Definitely not yours. You were a _baby_.”

“Maybe I cried too much. Maybe -”

“Hey.” Matt felt Foggy’s hand grip his arm, painfully tight despite the gentleness of his voice. “No. You ask her. She’ll say it wasn’t you.”

“I can’t _ask her_, Foggy.” And suddenly he was angry and wanted to get to his feet, but the alcohol and the hour and the fact that he was so damn tired all conspired to keep him on the couch. “What if she says -” He couldn’t finish, and veered off to, “What if my dad was right?”

“Matty, that wasn’t real.”

“It felt real. It was at Fogwell’s, and it was… he sounded just like that.” Matt waved vaguely toward the tape recorder.

“You were under a lot of stress then,” Foggy said. His grip on Matt’s arm loosened, but his hand remained. “Sometimes when a person is under that kind of stress…” Matt heard him gulp a breath of air. “Have you heard him lately? Or, uh, anybody else who logic suggests shouldn’t be there?”

“No, not lately.” There it was, a relieved sigh from Foggy and Matt decided not to tell him about how he’d seen Fisk at Fogwell’s, too, about the satisfying feel of his face under Matt’s fists.

No, Foggy didn’t need to know about that. It wasn’t real, after all.

_It wasn’t real._

“So it’s okay, then.” Foggy still sounded a little freaked out, and Matt felt a twinge of guilt. He put his glasses back on and summoned a smile.

“Yeah, Fogs. It’s fine.”

It wasn’t, though. Not really.

“And your dad leaving messages for Maggie about you, and her keeping them all these years; she must really have cared about you.”

“Huh.”

Matt wasn’t sure if that was quite how he would have interpreted things. After all, if she had cared so much, wouldn’t she have stayed? Told him who she was? If not before, then why hadn’t she said something when his father died? Matt had lost everything. Knowing that his mother was there and that she cared for him, that would have made things… not good - nothing could have been good at that time in his life - but at least less awful.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to Stick.

Matt went through the motions of the rest of the night. He ate when Foggy put more Pad Thai in front of him, though later he wouldn’t have been able to describe how it tasted. He drank some water, also at Foggy’s urging. He saw Foggy off in a Lyft and then managed to brush his teeth before falling into bed.

The world spun as he lay there, caused by some weird alchemical combination of alcohol and exhaustion and grief.

He couldn’t sleep, though. Each time he started to drift off, he thought he heard his father’s voice in the distance. Finally, he grabbed the cassette player, running his fingers lightly over the buttons to find the one with the triangle before he turned it on. Hearing the recording, scratchy with age, he was finally able to trick his brain into letting him sleep.

In his dream, both his parents were in the kitchen of his childhood home, but after a moment it began to feel _wrong_, in the way that dreams sometimes did.

He didn’t often dream in pictures these days, but in this one, he could see his parents, together as they had never been in his memory. Maggie was young and his subconscious had apparently decided that she was pretty, but his father was as Matt remembered him. He was aware enough of his dreaming to drink in their features, trying to ignore his growing sense of unease. A sharp sound drew his attention away from them - a gunshot? - and when he turned back, they were still there but their eyes were gone, replaced with smooth, featureless skin.

Matt woke with a start, his heart pounding.

It wasn’t real. It was a dream. He knew that. But his heart still ached for the beginning of the dream, and what might have been.

* * *

Matt stayed in his apartment the next day. He told himself that it was the hangover, but he felt better by mid-morning and still, he didn’t leave. He kept the tapes going on repeat, already trying to decide whether he could bear to part with them long enough to have them digitized, or if he should find some sort of equipment to do it himself.

Foggy would help. Of course, he would.

Foggy texted him on the hour, putting up with Matt’s terse responses until finally, sometime in the afternoon, the phone announced, “Foggy. Foggy. Foggy.”

Matt almost let it go to voicemail but figured that answering the phone was better than having Foggy pounding on his door. He fumbled to turn off the tape recorder and answered, “Hey, Fogs.”

“Did you eat?”

Did toothpaste count? Probably not. “Uh.”

“Do I need to come over there?”

Matt considered it, but he knew that if Foggy came over he would have to pretend everything was all right, and then it would take him longer to work through everything. A good wallow could take time.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll eat the rest of the Pad Thai.”

“When?” Foggy was too smart.

“Later today.”

“Okay.” Foggy hesitated, and Matt could hear his indecision. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, Fogs. I’m -”

“Don’t say you’re fine.”

“- going to be okay. I just need to, I don’t know, process. Hey, do me a favor, though?”

“Anything, buddy.” Foggy sounded relieved to have something to do.

“Don’t tell Karen? It’s not that I don’t ever want her to know. I just, I need some time.” And Karen would be at his place in a heartbeat, wanting to pull every detail out of the tapes. Maybe someday he would want her help with that, but not yet.

“Sure, no problem.”

“Thanks.”

The conversation faltered a little after that, with Foggy clearly not believing that Matt should be by himself and Matt gently maintaining his boundaries. Eventually, after he had promised to give better answers to Foggy’s texts, Matt was able to hang up the phone.

Then, of course, he turned on the tapes once more and crawled back into bed.

He did eat the Pad Thai. Eventually. It was just a bite, but that was enough to say _yes_ if Foggy asked him if he had eaten.

* * *

The next day was Sunday and Matt did not go to church. While he knew that he would find solace at Mass, he did not want to have to worry about avoiding Maggie. He still didn’t feel ready to talk to her. He couldn’t.

She had left him and his father. Matt accepted that she’d had good reasons for that. No, what he was struggling with was the fact that she and his father had been in contact for, it seemed, a good part of his childhood, and neither of them had seen fit to tell him about her. He could have understood the lack of information a little better if Maggie had lived in Schenectady or Canandaigua or anywhere that wasn’t the same neighborhood, attending the same church.

Had his gran known? Had she kept it from Matt, too?

Had everyone known? Surely somebody in the busybody Kitchen of his youth would have taken him aside and told him.

His father had probably thought it was Maggie’s decision. While Matt didn’t entirely agree with that, he could understand the viewpoint. It had also been the easier option for him, but his father had always encouraged Matt not to take the easy way out. He couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed.

Maggie, though, didn’t have the excuse of it not being her tale to tell.

Matt knew, as he had told Maggie, that he didn’t know how his life would have turned out differently if his mother had been in his life. He was, he assumed, where God wanted him to be. He accepted that, but he wasn’t necessarily happy about it. His life had been shaped by so many secrets. They had placed him on his path, and he couldn’t imagine any other life, but he still couldn’t help but wonder what could have been.

That evening, he needed to feel his city around him and so finally left the apartment. His feet took him to the church, though he hesitated before going inside.

She probably wouldn’t even be there. There must be something else she had to do: laundry or cooking or something for the children at St. Agnes.

Matt tried not to be jealous of those children, tried to focus on the fact that caring for them meant that his mother wouldn’t be in the church. He could go inside and pray, and maybe things would make more sense.

Well, no. Praying probably wouldn’t make things clearer in his head. But he needed to talk to somebody, and he couldn’t dump on Foggy any more, at least not for a little while.

Grief for his father hit him unexpectedly, and he nearly lost his footing as he made his way up the steps. His father, that was who he wanted to talk to about this. He wanted to hear what his father had to say about the decisions he had made, why he had remained silent and allowed Maggie her secrets. But that, barring a hallucination that wouldn’t appear now that he wanted it, wasn’t possible.

Matt made up his mind and opened the door to Clinton Church. If he couldn’t talk to his father, at least he could pray; not that God would answer, either. But Matthew Murdock, as anybody who had ever faced him in court knew, could _talk_.

* * *

Maggie hesitated outside the door. Matthew probably didn’t want to see her. If he did, he would have found her. But Connie had said she had seen him going into the church and that he had looked upset.

Of course, he was upset. Maggie did not regret giving him the tapes, only that she hadn’t done so sooner; of course, hearing them would cause Matthew pain. She had hurt him again.

Their relationship was built on a foundation of _should have_ and _if only_ and Maggie regretted so much of what had happened, but she couldn’t change the past. She could only move forward and hope that Matthew could find it in him to do so as well.

Part of her thought that she should wait, should let Matthew come to her, but then she had stayed away for so long. Maybe it would make things better if she made the effort and approached him now.

Maybe she was overthinking things.

Of course, she was overthinking things.

Maggie took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and pushed open the door. There he was, head bowed, looking small in the vastness of the sanctuary. He spoke - a curse? A prayer? Whatever it was, Maggie couldn’t quite make it out.

Matthew probably knew she was there. Maggie wasn’t entirely sure how his heightened senses worked, but she saw the way his shoulders stiffened.

“I can leave,” she offered, when she reached him.

He straightened and got to his feet. “No. We should do this.”

Maggie felt a pang of dread hit her solidly in the chest at his phrasing. “All right. Come on.”

She turned to lead the way to St. Agnes, afraid to look behind and see if he was following. Feeling a sudden sympathy for Orpheus leaving the underworld, unsure if Eurydice followed, she moved forward and into the kitchen.

“I’m not hungry.” Matthew sounded a little surly, but at least he was there and talking to her.

“Sit down.” Maggie tried to make it a suggestion, but, as so often seemed to happen when she dealt with Matthew, her voice came out clipped and terse and wrong. Would it have been like that if she had stayed? Would she have learned how to talk to her child?

But he sat. She opened the high cabinet that all the nuns knew about but none of them discussed, and pulled out a bottle. Trying to keep her hand steady, she poured two drinks and set one so that it rested against Matthew’s hand, then sat opposite him at the table.

A sudden flicker of memory nearly overwhelmed her: a much smaller Matthew sitting at the same table, wearing a nearly-identical expression as he informed her that his father let him drink Scotch; she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to burst into tears.

“Did you listen to the tapes?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t drink. She did. There were things she was probably going to have to say, and while she should be able to get through then without alcohol, this way would be easier. The cup gave her something to do with her hands, she told herself.

“I should have given them to you a long time ago.”

“Yes.”

So. He was going to be like that. Maggie reached for patience; he had every right to be angry, much as she would have loved for his forgiveness to come easily. And he was her child, and Jack’s. She had hoped that he would be spared their faults, but of course he would be angry and stubborn.

“I’m sorry.”

Matthew didn’t say anything, but Maggie saw how his jaw worked, the way he reached for the glass and then put his hands away from it in a gesture that seemed full of resolve.

Well. Jack’s father had been a little too fond of the bottle, and Jack himself had enjoyed his Scotch, of course. Interesting to see Matthew refrain.

He seemed to be struggling with something, though Maggie didn’t think that resisting the lure of cheap Scotch was that difficult. She decided to wait and see if he could work through whatever it was, and finally, the words escaped him in a burst, “All that time! You and Dad were in contact during my whole childhood?”

“All that time,” Maggie agreed. “Or most of it. Just at the beginning, I stayed away. It was too hard.”

“Too hard,” Matthew scoffed, shaking his head. “Try raising a kid on your own.”

Maggie took a breath and thought hard about compassion. “Your father understood,” she began.

“Sure, he did.” Matthew spoke quietly, his voice low and rough, but the derision in his voice felt like a slap. “He understood, but that didn’t make it any easier for him. I asked about you, did he tell you that? It never came up on the tapes. Every so often, I would ask him about my mother. No matter how I asked, all he’d ever say is that you loved me.”

“I did. I do.”

It was the first time Maggie had even hinted at the depth of her feelings for Matthew, even though she hadn’t come out and said the words, and he just brushed it aside. “Sure. That’s why you lived nine blocks away and didn’t bother to let me know you existed.”

Maggie drained her drink. To hell with restraint. She had never been known for that, anyway. “It would have confused you.”

“Sure, initially, but then I would have _known_. And then when Dad died…” Matthew’s voice broke, and with it Maggie’s heart. “I was _right here_, and you could have…” All the fight went out of Matthew. His shoulders slumped. Voice low, he said, “You could have told me.”

“I could have. Should have. You’re right.” Maggie regretted that she had sat opposite Matthew rather than next to him. The distance between them, just a foot or two, seemed insurmountable. “I know I can’t change the past, but I thought maybe the tapes would help you understand a little, at least your father’s perspective.”

“He wanted you to tell me. He said so.”

Maggie could hear Jack’s voice in her mind, rough with fatigue. _He would understand,_ Jack had said, likely after Matthew had tried to wheedle an answer out of him. But Maggie had never replied when she’d seen Jack around the Kitchen, and that had been the last time he’d brought it up.

“He did. He was certain you would have been able to handle it.”

“I would have.”

Maggie smiled a little, or tried to. Her lips wouldn’t curve up as she wished. “Matthew, you of all people were not the one I was concerned with, nor the others in the neighborhood. Even then, I was so tied up in what I’d done wrong that I couldn’t bring myself to make it right.”

Matthew made a small sound, not quite acceptance but perhaps understanding. “Guilt.”

“Catholic, after all. You know we’re happier when we have a cross to bear.” Maggie hesitated, then admitted, “I never confessed - you. People knew, but I could never bring myself to say the words. Not officially.”

“Why not?” Matthew spoke so quietly that she had to strain to hear him.

“What I had with your father and you, how could that be a sin? My only sin was leaving you, and if I told…” Maggie faltered, and Matthew, after a moment of fumbling, grasped her hand. She tried to speak around the sudden tightness in her throat, joy so great that it was painful. “If I told, if I confessed, I could receive absolution, and I didn’t deserve it. I don’t -” Maggie wanted to lift her hands, to cover her face, but nothing in the world would make her pull her hand from Matthew’s. “I blamed myself so much, Matthew, and confessing it would have -” She shook her head, not that he could see it, but maybe he heard the rustle of her veil.

“It would have brought you some relief,” Matthew said.

“Yes.” It felt good to admit it. He of all people should be the one to hear her talk about it as she had with none other, not even Connie. “And I didn’t deserve -”

“Look,” Matthew said, his voice holding a sharpness that Maggie recognized in herself. “This whole martyrdom thing you’ve got going on is, I guess, a family trait. But you beating yourself up over it, what’s the point?”

“Should I put on a mask and get somebody to do it for me?” Maggie wished she hadn’t said the words as soon as they escaped her lips, but Matthew actually laughed, though the sound held a bitter edge.

“Is that why you stayed away? Because it would be obvious we were related if we spent too much time together?”

“I… yes. In part.” Maggie took a breath, then said, “I was the one who told Paul Lantom to bring you here.” Paul’s loss was still an ache in her chest, one that she knew Matthew shared, but Maggie smiled a little as she imagined how happy this conversation would have made him. “The first day with you here, it was wonderful, but… too much. I knew that if I let myself get too close, I’d end up telling you.”

“That first day,” Matthew echoed, his brows lowering, his expression thoughtful. “That was you?” He exhaled a soft sigh. “I remember. And then you... stayed away, I guess. I wasn’t sure what happened to you. You nuns all look alike.”

Well, if he was making blind jokes, maybe he was starting to be less upset with her.

“That’s part of our plan, the rest of you not being able to tell us apart,” Maggie replied, mostly in jest.

“But how did you know the way my grandmother made oatmeal? I remember I asked you, and then Father Lantom came in and changed the subject.”

“She taught me how to make it back when your father and I were first married. Said that a Murdock can’t survive without that oatmeal.” Maggie shook her head at the memory, smiling a little. “Not that Jack couldn’t make it himself, but I think your gran liked the idea of someone taking care of him.”

“Yeah, funny how that worked out,” Matthew replied, with a bite to his tone that Maggie recognized. She had used it herself as recently as that morning when a plumber had not come at the appointed time. He released her hand, and she tried not to feel bereft. Shaking his head, he added, sounding more tired than upset, “You spent the day with me and decided that it was _too much_ for you? I was a kid. My father had just been murdered. That was the time to tell me. It would have been, I don’t know, good to know I still had family in the world.”

He was still thinking of her as family. That was a good sign. “You had already been through so much that I thought I couldn’t add to it.” He exhaled a short, derisive sound, and Maggie said, “I know. But consider, Matthew, that you were not the only one overwhelmed, the only one grieving, the only one who had lost someone. Yes,” she added before he could point it out. “You were a child. I was grown. I should have made better choices. I was so caught up in blaming myself for what happened - maybe if I could have been stronger, could have stayed, Jack still would have been alive. Maybe you wouldn’t have been blinded.”

Matthew didn’t say anything. He toyed with his glass, twisting it in a small circle. “Wow,” he said, his lips twisting in a smile that held a hint of wryness. “You really think that much of yourself?” Maggie drew in a breath to reply, likely with some heat, but he talked over her. “I don’t think Dad ever would have managed to die of old age.” He finally took up the glass, drank, set it down with a thump. “He was a Murdock boy, and you know what they say about the Murdock boys.” His voice held a trace of hesitancy and Maggie thought that he would be avoiding her gaze if he could see.

Maggie knew what he meant, of course. It had been said often enough around the Kitchen, after all.

“Matthew, you’re _good_,” she said, her voice fierce. “Even the violence in you, you use it to help others.”

“Would God see it that way?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t exactly sure what God would say - there were few things she was sure of these days - but she knew it was the answer Matthew needed to hear. His expression a little rueful, he smiled and shook his head, though he turned his attention back to her as she asked, “The things that you do, do you confess them?”

“Yes.” He paused a beat, then clarified, “Not always in detail. Not since Father Lantom -”

Maggie nodded. “I understand. Paul knew. Father Manuel is a good man, but he hasn’t known you all your life the way Paul did.”

Something cleared in Matthew’s face, and he nodded. “I like him. Father Manuel. I’m sure it was hard for him, coming here when he did, but he’s doing his best.”

“He is.”

“You should talk to him.”

“I… do. Fairly regularly. Part of the job, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No,” Maggie agreed. “But… telling him about my past now? After all this time?”

“Might help?”

Maggie didn’t answer.

Matthew ducked his head and smiled in a way that made Maggie remember him as a child, before Jack’s death, before his accident. “Look,” Matthew said, with an expression that suggested he saw the humor in a blind guy saying it, “Do what you want. You will anyway. But I think we could use all the help we can get.”

“Probably.”

But Maggie thought of that smile, and the way Matthew had said _we_, and knew she would do it. Maybe talking to Father Manuel would help; maybe it wouldn’t. But if doing that could get another of those smiles out of Matthew, it would be worth it.

Matthew let the silence hang for a few minutes, then asked, “Got any more of that Scotch?”

Maggie did, and she poured another glass for each of them. It helped make the remaining conversation go a little more easily.

And it was nice to talk about Jack with someone else who loved him. That, Maggie reflected, was something else she could have had, all these years.

Pity.

* * *

It took Maggie longer than she would like to admit to follow through with it. She prepared: her habit, her armor, perfectly arranged, her hair neat beneath her veil. Not a line out of place. She knew Matthew wasn’t there watching - how could he be? - but she imagined he was as she made her way into the church.

She could have pulled Father Manuel aside and had a private chat with him, and he likely would have given her absolution, but she wanted to make it official. This, like so many other things, was something she should have done long ago.

Maggie entered the confessional and tried not to feel claustrophobic as she closed the door behind her.

This was freeing, right? Of course, it was. But she’d clung so tightly to it that it was difficult to let go.

Father Manuel cleared his throat and Maggie knelt, crossed herself, did everything just as she had since she was a girl. She and Matthew would heal, and this was the first step.

“Bless me father, for I have sinned.”


End file.
